Work is being done among Ukrainian military personnel, including those who have been placed in reserve, to explain the undesirability of traveling to the occupied territories, including the Crimea. This was announced on August 17 by Vladislav Seleznev, spokesperson for the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, in a broadcast of the Ukrainian Radio Svoboda’s program “Your Freedom”, while commenting on the arrests of former Ukrainian soldiers whom the Russian law enforcement officials …

A meeting between US State Department Special Representative for Ukraine Kurt Volker and the Russian Presidential Aide Vladislav Surkov is scheduled for the first half of next week, and will be held in Minsk. This was reported by Interfax, citing an outside source.

"The meeting is expected to be held in Minsk in the first half of next week," the source said.

The parties intend to discuss the implementation of the Minsk agreements. It is also possible that they will touch upon the topic of the …

The Russian Ministry of Justice added the Jehovah’s Witnesses religious organization to the list of organizations which are prohibited and subject to dissolution in Russian territory. In the department’s official announcement, this ruling is explained as the application of the law on opposing extremist activity.

The Russian Justice Ministry noted that the ban extends to the Jehovah’s Witnesses Administrative Center, as well as the 395 regional branches included in its structure.

On July 17, …

Power supply problems persist in Russian-annexed Crimea, a report from the Russian Ministry of Energy states.

“On August 15, from 12:47 to the present, due to unfavorable weather conditions (rain, thunderstorms) there have been massive emergency power outages of the 6-10 KW distribution grids in Crimean territory,” the Russian Energy Ministry announced.

Due to the bad weather, 13 aerial 6-10 KW lines and 62 transformer substations were switched off. Yesterday, on August 15, 53 settlements had …

The National Anti-corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) said that it reported the existence of the name Paul Manafort in the Party of Regions’ “black ledger” in response to the media’s inquiries.

“The NABU and SAP have repeatedly stated that no investigation has been carried out with respect to Paul Manafort. We stress that he is not a person being investigated by us. All comments regarding the presence of the name Paul Manafort in the lists of the so-called ‘black ledger’ of the Party of …

American Pew Research Center surveyed residents of 37 countries around the world regarding their attitude towards Russia.

It turned out that only 34% out of 41,000 respondents have an amiable opinion of Russia. Another 40% have negative feelings about Russia and the rest have not yet decided.

There are three countries where the majority of the population had a positive attitude towards Russia, Vietnam (83%), Greece (64%), and the Philippines (55%).

This year, a negative attitude towards …

"Belarusian refineries process our raw oil. There is no other oil there and it is unlikely to appear, that is why we need to align their receiving our oil with the requirement of using our infrastructure," as said by President Vladimir Putin at a meeting on transport infrastructure development for the northwest Russia which was held on Wednesday, August 16th, in Kaliningrad, as reported by RIA Novosti.

Belarus has two oil refineries in Mozyr and Novopolotsk. Russia agreed to supply 24 million …

Valeriya Lutkovska, the Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights, has initiated the opening of a case regarding the confiscation of $1.5 billion belonging to the entourage of former President Viktor Yanukovych, due to the delay in the publication of a judgment by the Kramatorsk City Court. This was stated in a message published on Facebook by the Ukrainian office of the non-governmental international organization anti-corruption Transparency International.

The message states that a …